Balloons Fly Low, but Parade Delights

Slide Show | Taking Flight Balloons floated down the route of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade after an early scare they might be grounded because of high winds.

Todd Heisler / The New York Times

By SARAH MASLIN NIR

November 28, 2013

To the joy of children and the relief of parents endlessly checking the weather report and bracing for their little ones’ dashed hopes, New York officials gave the giant balloons the all-clear Thursday morning to fly in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

But the air was far from still, with brisk winds and occasional gusts ensuring that the suspense surrounding one of the city’s signature spectacles continued through much of the morning.

There were shrieks from the crowd with every wild swing of one of the parade’s largest balloons, a looming black dragon named Toothless from the children’s movie “How to Train Your Dragon.”

To combat the wind, parade marshals early on ordered the balloons to be flown low, almost at head height. Helium-filled claws scraped the pavement at times, only to be scooped up by handlers who then lifted the dragon’s paws in their arms.

“We did get up on one little tree back there once, but it wasn’t too bad,” said one volunteer dragon handler, Bill Bone, a trial lawyer from Palm Beach, Fla., just moments after navigating the balloon around the tricky turn into Columbus Circle. “They trained us well. We’ve been up since 5 o’clock — the practice, the rehearsal, all the drills. No one is worried.”

The main fear seemed to have been the possibility of a balloon-free parade, a situation that has occurred only once since the parade began featuring balloons in the 1920s, in 1971, when there was a nor’easter, with rain and very high winds.

“I was scared we weren’t going to see the balloons,” said Iris Guidry of Edgewater, N.J., who watched the parade for the first time from a spot at 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas.

“This was on my bucket list,” she said. “When you see it on TV you’re like, ‘How do they do it?’ And with the balloons and the weather you think, ‘Oh lord, how are they going to be able to do it?’ ”

By the time the parade was underway, will-they-or-won’t-they seemed banished from the mind of Lillian Sullivan, age 4. She was sitting on her uncle’s shoulders at 42nd Street and Avenue of the Americas, ready to meet her idol, Hello Kitty, and dressed for the occasion, in a silky pink jacket emblazoned with the cartoon cat. “It’s my favorite,” she said. “Because I like it.”

The balloon decision had been uncertain because of concerns that the winds would exceed the city’s limit for flying balloons — sustained winds of 23 miles per hour and gusts exceeding 34 m.p.h. Those limits were put in place after a Cat in the Hat balloon hit a lamppost at 72nd Street and Central Park West in 1997, knocking down part of the pole and injuring four spectators.

In the end, the winds on Thursday measured 10 m.p.h., with gusts peaking early at 26 m.p.h. before calming as the parade continued. The cold seemed to be the chief concern, even to those packed close behind police barricades. Parade watchers blew in their cupped hands and stamped feet to stay warm.

Still, swift gusts from side streets — the result of a “canyon effect” as the breeze shot between tall buildings, according to meteorologists at the National Weather Service — frequently buffeted the balloons.

Just before the parade began at 9 a.m., the Sonic the Hedgehog balloon bucked against its ropes at the 77th Street staging area and head-butted a tree, sending small branches and twigs showering to the street below. Shortly afterward, a parade official ordered handlers to significantly lower the balloons. In 2006, the year after an M&Ms balloon crashed into a lamppost and injured two siblings, balloons were also marched in a low-flight pattern.

Not everyone was focused on the balloons. Samantha Savory, 26, a publicist from Miami, brought two teenage nieces to the parade. “For all the kids’ sake, I’m glad it worked out,” she said. But for her two teenage charges, the true spectacles were the celebrities on floats. “They were, like, losing their minds,” she said.

By the time Toothless the dragon reached the final stretch of the parade at 34th Street, the wind had abated and the previously pinioned creature was permitted to fly a bit higher. The crew seemed to relax. As Kristin Chenoweth sang “New York, New York,” from a float ahead, a few even did the cancan.

In the crowd, James Neilan, 57, a city bus driver, had nothing but booming praise for how the beast was handled, despite the nose dive or two. “They got him up! Isn’t it great?” he shouted. “Woo-hoo! Happy Thanksgiving!”